The city council of New York and the mayor have approved a Muslim mosque to be built on the site where the greatest terrorist attack in US history occurred.

Should this be allowed?

I mean... if it's a case of religious freedom, and not a slap in the face of the Americans, why do they feel so strongly about building it on that spot and so determined to have a grand opening on 9-11-2011?

IMO... this isn't about anyone's right to be a Muslim... it's their way to show the world that the US is a bunch of liberal pussies.

I'm sure some innocent atheist died in the collapse of the towers along with some Muslims. (collateral damage?) So was the attack really a case of religious violence or nothing more than some terrorists who hate the US? Are the people wanting to build this mosque at ground zero really concerned about having a place to practice their religion or are they also terrorist who just hate the US?

Why they want to build it there, I do not know. But should they be allowed to do so? Of course. If other religious organizations may then they may. Even if they said it was to spite the US they should be allowed. This is what freedom means.

That's some fairly loaded questions. I'm guessing it is meant as a gesture of peace.

I don't see anything wrong with, apart from it being a waste of prime property. I'm not American.

very well stated

Don't worry the millions of innocent people the US kill the world over with wars and trade policy in the pursuit of imperialist economic world domination far out weighs the effects of one vaguely contentious building.

The site is 2 blocks away from ground zero, btw (not that I think that should be relevant, but some may).

I wouldn't have even blinked an eye at this mosque, but the opening date is the 10 year anniversary.

I still don't care though. Let them build whatever they want. If they're deliberately doing it to get a rise, well that's unfortunate and I wish they'd reconsider.

If it was a gesture of peace, why would it be so important to open it on the 10th anniversary of the attack of the twin towers?

Source please?

Statistically it is a fantastically high probability that atheist were killed on 911, we know as a metaphisical certitude that muslems were killed (apart from the hijackers that were mostly duped into doing the mission). Some people were mind warped with a dizzying perception of the qu'an that they should kill Americans, any Americans, because our Soldiers had set foot in the holy lands in Saudi Arabia (never mind we were there to provide national security they could not). Their reading comprehension level is even with the "christians" at the Westboro baptist church.

The idea that the US is an imperialist power is congruently nuts though. We have not exploited countries we have conquered. To the contrary it has been a pretty awesome deal actually historically. Hint: compare how the Germans and Japanese fared after being beaten vs the Etruscans, the Carthiginians, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Chinese in the Opium Wars, etc etc etc.
Kindly name the time after WWI we were even complicit in putting the boot on the throat of a beaten parties neck and I will gladly recant.
There is imperialism that is being done but it is done by faceless nameless corporations that have no fealty to any flag whatsoever. Exxon even paid $0 in taxes to the United States. The American people have that tight a reign on even the largest of the so-called US flagged companies.

you must have your head deep in the sand if you need a source for that.

That.


TBH I am far more alarmed at public dollars being spent on building fundamentalist super-churches on military posts, and all religion businesses in this country being tax exempt. Even if that were not so, the failure to prosecute the catholic church on RICOH violations for permitting and covering up child rape would still be way way ahead of putting a mosque in NYC. That said I know people there in NYC that are deeply harmed by the building being built THERE, and I understand how painful this for them.

If you do not know that the US goes well well out of its way to minimize civilian casualties, it is you that are ignoring the facts.

Well Vietnam is between one and three million.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq between 500,000 and a million.

Figures for the endless US sponsored puppet governments in central America are very shaky at best but probably stand somewhere between 1 and 5 million depending on if you trust the University of Hawaii or Chomsky.

All of these are likely dwarfed by the long term effects of America's illegal farm subisidies, which force developing countries to abondon stable crops and pursue unstable cash crops that are victim to huge price fluctuations and cannot be stored, with the result that famine and desperate poverty has become the standard line in once wealthy areas of Africa/South America/Asia.

Add Afghanistan, first Iraq war, support/supply of various tyranical puppet governments in the Middle East, South America, and Asia, and you could probably double it again depending on whose figures you go on.

Add the drug 'war' and you could probably add another few million - although sadly no accurate figures exist.

Yeah while the US were dropping a greater total tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than they did on the entire blanket/fire bombing of Japanese cities I'm sure the people on the ground thought how nice it was of them to go to such lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Not to mention all of those hyper accurate, non civilian harming weapons used like agent orange, napalm, and land mines.

[ ] innocent people

Are you serious? Less than half the figures quoted could even be considered soldiers - and basically none of those soliders/civilians could be considered guilty of crimes worthy of aggressive occupation/economic slavery.

This controversy is unbelievably stupid and embarrassing. It shows once again how racist people are willing to be and not even hide their face on tv. Yes, 9/11 was done by crazed Muslims, but that means nothing about the Muslims living in our country who want to peacefully practice their religion.

What better gesture to the freedoms that the USA supposedly stands for than allowing this mosque to be built right there? It would be a better 9/11 tribute than whatever they're taking a lifetime to build.

And the worst part, imo, is that people are trying to prevent it from being built by having the building where it would be built declared as a landmark. Yet not once have I heard anyone state what that building is or why it should be a landmark. It's just wrong. You make it a landmark if it really is, not if you have some anti-Muslim agenda you want to push through.

I was saying that in reply to joey's post asking for a source. You just happened to reply in the time i replied. EDIT: just read your post. total speculation either way, but that wasn't even the point.

You seem confused about the laws of the U.S. Here in America we have laws protecting freedom of religion. Indeed, this is considered a central part of our heritage. Among other things, that means that the government cannot legally stop you from building a church on your own property because it dislikes the religion of your church. The land on which the proposed Islamic cultural center would be built is privately owned. Thus, the city of New York has no legal grounds on which they can prevent the Islamic cultural center from being built.

So yes, it should be allowed, unless you think we should repeal the First Amendment.

Edit: The point is, if Mayor Bloomberg or someone tried to prevent the Islamic cultural center from being built, they would be sued and almost certainly lose.

Alright my readin comprehension is suffering today. (just worked 12 hours overnight) i'll come back later after i've slept a bit and expand on what's actually been said

Actually Vietnam was even worse than that. We dropped more total tonnage on North Vietnam than all of the ordinance on both sides in WWII. That was the end of the "total war" concept and yes that was repugnant. That is what you get when you get corporate types controlling your military. McNamera and his whiz kids figured if you drop x number of bombs to get y number of casualties...so let's just drop 10,000x bombs. Moronic.

The Iraq numbers are complete crap. We have gone out of our way to a fault in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

BTW if you are against landmines in Korea you just don't understand the situation. There are 300 DIVISIONS on the other side of that DMZ. It saves lives on both sides because it is a big part of why there has been a stalemate for 60 years.

By the way that was apples and aircraft carriers from you original point. You said we are an imperialist power, how has the US taxpayer profited from any of it? We have gotten exactly 0 barrels of oil at less than OPEC value, that is not exactly a banana republic deal.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about vis a vis agribusiness. The US does more to feed third world people than all other developed countries combined. My great-uncle was the supreme lord god yoda in the field of Agronomy. Our country sent him to Brazil, and Indonesia to name a couple of countries and it is not hard to see how that completely screwed the American farmer. To pick on the US for price supports is just nuts. You really do not understand this whatsoever. After the profanity of EU countries dumping vitamin A hyperdosed rice by the hundreds of tons because of their insipid paranoia is worse than anything the US ever did. That the EU puts standards on Uganda that mean that millions needlessly die and millions more are incapacitated because they do not allow them to use DDT to kill the malaria infected mosquitoes is pretty hard to stomach.

This definitely looks like a case of looking at the speck in the neighbors eye when there is a log in your own eye, but the US has done a great great deal to be ashamed of. To suggest they are imperialist is just ridiculous though.

England, now that was in imperialist power.

The most money that they give to feed people, they give it to people who buy weapons from U.S. And so do it also the Europeans.

It isn't as direct as that. It is not a conspiracy. But it is a huge problem.

I think a military force with real teeth should distribute food so thugs can't steal it and sell it for things like weapons.

If they do it, you can sign me up to be on the M-2 on point on the first mission.

But, one thing we have done is drop individual meals from aircraft over so large an area that local thuggery can't get more than a small portion of it. I was working for the Red Cross in Germany when we did this for example in Afghanistan in pillow sized sharia compliant meal packs from C-17's at the beginning of the conflict there.